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starcasita's review against another edition
dark
emotional
hopeful
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
Content Warnings
Graphic: Confinement, Suicide attempt, Death, Gaslighting, Colonisation, Grief, Slavery, Emotional abuse, Suicidal thoughts, Murder, Child death, and Pregnancy
Moderate: Injury/Injury detail, Blood, and Body horror
Minor: Animal death
ellariawrites's review against another edition
dark
hopeful
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
“Forgetting is not the same as healing.”
This was such a beautiful and intense story. I haven’t encountered a story like this before. I haven’t seen mermaids presented this way before.
I heard about The Deep after listening to an episode of the Sci-Fi Sigh Podcast. The story follows Yetu who is the historian for an underwater group of people called the Wajinru. Think of the Wajinru as mermaids, mermaids that came to be because they are the descendants of enslaved pregnant African women who were thrown over board during the trans Atlantic slave trade. As a historian, Yetu is tasked with the responsibility of holding all the memories of her people. Their entire history, origins, traumas, everything, she has to hold. And as you can imagine, that is a crushing weight to bare. Once a year, the Wajinru hold this event called the Remeberance where for about 3 days, all the Wajinru come together and Yetu gives them back their memories. It’s the only time of the year when she is free from holding the memories. She’s been doing this for 20 years but this time, she leaves. She flees her people. And the story follows her from there.
This is a story of trauma, and of generational trauma. And carrying that burden is practically killing Yetu. Many times she tries to harm herself or take her own life because of how much pain she’s in. She also experiences gaslighting because her people don’t think it’s that bad. They believe it to be an honor to be the historian, how could it ever be a burden? And the saddest part of all to me is that Yetu feels like a failure. She’s feels like she’s letting everyone down because of how much she struggles to carry the memories. And she doesn’t know who she is. She talks often about how she is the historian to her people and how she is existing as all of the people before her, to the point where she doesn’t believe she herself, Yetu, exists or is alive.
This story asks some incredible questions. What is a people without their history? Does a people exist if there’s no one left to remember them and tell their stories? Is it right to make one person bare the entire weight of a society? What can happen when we don’t deal with our trauma, if we choose to ignore it or not acknowledge it? Who are we after we’ve let go of all our trauma? Is it right to abandon your people in order to save yourself?
This story is also unapologetically queer. The characters are queer, the perspective the story is told through is queer, the romances sprinkled throughout are queer. The story also takes an interesting look at gender and sexuality. I really liked the way gender was presented in this story. Yetu says that the wajinru have self determining bodies and can choose to have either, both, or neither parts. And it’s normal for wajinru to have multiple partners at one time or at different times.
This is as much a story of pain as it is a story of hope. There is so much this book goes into and in a surprisingly short amount of pages. Many many many papers could be written about this one book. Everything in this book, trauma, history, queerness, the environment, and fantasy, all of them weave together to form an enthralling tale that I highly, highly, highly recommend reading.
This was such a beautiful and intense story. I haven’t encountered a story like this before. I haven’t seen mermaids presented this way before.
I heard about The Deep after listening to an episode of the Sci-Fi Sigh Podcast. The story follows Yetu who is the historian for an underwater group of people called the Wajinru. Think of the Wajinru as mermaids, mermaids that came to be because they are the descendants of enslaved pregnant African women who were thrown over board during the trans Atlantic slave trade. As a historian, Yetu is tasked with the responsibility of holding all the memories of her people. Their entire history, origins, traumas, everything, she has to hold. And as you can imagine, that is a crushing weight to bare. Once a year, the Wajinru hold this event called the Remeberance where for about 3 days, all the Wajinru come together and Yetu gives them back their memories. It’s the only time of the year when she is free from holding the memories. She’s been doing this for 20 years but this time, she leaves. She flees her people. And the story follows her from there.
This is a story of trauma, and of generational trauma. And carrying that burden is practically killing Yetu. Many times she tries to harm herself or take her own life because of how much pain she’s in. She also experiences gaslighting because her people don’t think it’s that bad. They believe it to be an honor to be the historian, how could it ever be a burden? And the saddest part of all to me is that Yetu feels like a failure. She’s feels like she’s letting everyone down because of how much she struggles to carry the memories. And she doesn’t know who she is. She talks often about how she is the historian to her people and how she is existing as all of the people before her, to the point where she doesn’t believe she herself, Yetu, exists or is alive.
This story asks some incredible questions. What is a people without their history? Does a people exist if there’s no one left to remember them and tell their stories? Is it right to make one person bare the entire weight of a society? What can happen when we don’t deal with our trauma, if we choose to ignore it or not acknowledge it? Who are we after we’ve let go of all our trauma? Is it right to abandon your people in order to save yourself?
This story is also unapologetically queer. The characters are queer, the perspective the story is told through is queer, the romances sprinkled throughout are queer. The story also takes an interesting look at gender and sexuality. I really liked the way gender was presented in this story. Yetu says that the wajinru have self determining bodies and can choose to have either, both, or neither parts. And it’s normal for wajinru to have multiple partners at one time or at different times.
This is as much a story of pain as it is a story of hope. There is so much this book goes into and in a surprisingly short amount of pages. Many many many papers could be written about this one book. Everything in this book, trauma, history, queerness, the environment, and fantasy, all of them weave together to form an enthralling tale that I highly, highly, highly recommend reading.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Blood, Death, Gaslighting, Grief, Mental illness, Self harm, Slavery, and Suicide attempt
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